SUMMARY: Baldwin County, one of Alabama’s fastest-growing metro areas, has seen real estate prices rise, but property sales have decreased recently. Around 19 people move to the county daily, and the area’s appeal, including proximity to beaches, contributes to the demand. Despite a 7% drop in sales volume for 2024, the average home price rose by 0.2% to about $493,000. Experts attribute the slowdown to a post-COVID market correction, comparing it to trends from 2017-2018. Additionally, more buyers are paying with cash. Experts are optimistic about a slight increase in sales and prices in 2025, with steady growth expected.

For years, Baldwin County has been one of the fastest growing metro areas in the nation and one of the most sought-after places to live in Alabama.
FULL STORY: https://trib.al/AmnEDmU

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Alabama House committee approves bill imposing death penalty for child sexual assault

by Ralph Chapoco, Alabama Reflector
February 5, 2025

Alabama may join Florida and Tennessee in imposing the death penalty for crimes not resulting in a person’s death.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday approved HB 49, sponsored by Rep. Matt Simpson, R-Daphne, which would allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for adults convicted of raping or sodomizing those younger than 12 years old in lieu of sentencing them to life without the possibility of parole.

Currently, capital murder is only imposed for crimes that resulted in a person’s death, such as kidnapping, robbery, burglary or murdering a law enforcement official.

“This is the worst of the worst offense to me,” Simpson, a former child victims prosecutor in Baldwin County, said in an interview with reporters following the meeting. “If someone gets mad and kills somebody, I can see that more than someone who rapes and takes the innocence of child away who is that young. That person cannot be rehabilitated, that person cannot get back in the streets.”

Originally, the bill stated that the death penalty could be applied if the victim is younger than 6 years old. Currently, people who are found guilty of rape and sodomy of a child younger than 6 years old may only be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa introduced an amendment and members agreed to apply the law for those who are younger than 12 years old.

However, England voted against the legislation. Some civil rights groups at the hearing refused to offer their support.

“The state should not be in the business of killing people,” said Dev Wakeley, worker policy advocate with Alabama Arise.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1977 case of Coker vs. Georgia that the death penalty could only be applied to crimes resulting in death.

Erlich Anthony Coker was sentenced to death by Georgia courts for raping a woman following an escape from a prison, where he was serving several sentences for rape, kidnapping and assault.

In a 7-2 decision, justices of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the punishment was “grossly disproportionate” to the crime. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ruling in Kennedy vs. Louisiana in 2008, involving a defendant sentenced to death for the rape of a child.

A narrow majority of the justices agreed that “applying the death penalty in such a case would be an exercise of ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ in violation of a national consensus on the issue.”

Several Republican-led states are hoping to change that idea. Florida in 2023 passed a law to challenge the ruling, as did Tennessee in 2024.

“This is an attempt to challenge that,” Simpson said of his bill.

The bill moves to the Alabama House of Representatives for consideration.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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Alabama Senate committee delays vote on additional borrowing for Escambia prison

by Ralph Chapoco, Alabama Reflector
February 5, 2025

The head of the Alabama Senate’s General Fund committee Wednesday delayed a vote on a bill to allow the state to borrow an additional $500 million to build a prison in Escambia County.

Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, told members of the Finance and Taxation General Fund Committee he wanted to hold off a committee vote on SB 60 but he declined to state a reason.

“What we are doing here is using a means so that we stop looking in the sofa cushions,” Albritton said, citing difficulties the state has faced in finding money to fund two new prison facilities.

He added that using bonds is just an option that will be used so that there is enough money.

“We are simply going to authorize an additional $500 million in bonds to be able to complete the construction of both facilities completely,” he said.

Amid decades-long overcrowding and a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit over prison conditions, the Alabama Legislature in 2021 approved a $1.3 billion plan to build two 4,000-bed men’s prisons. One facility will be located in Elmore County; one will be in Escambia. The state used $400 million in COVID relief funds for the project, as well as $135 million from the General Fund, and borrowed the remainder.

But the cost of the Elmore County facility, named the Governor Kay Ivey Correctional Complex last year, has ballooned to more than $1.08 billion, consuming nearly all of the additional appropriations. The state also struggled to borrow the money needed to pay the initial cost.

“We were only able to borrow, when we went to market, $500 million of that $785 million,” Albritton said. “And then we discovered that the estimates were slightly inaccurate in that the cost of the Elmore is about $1.08 billion.”

This bill leaves the original proposal largely intact, with most of the modifications isolated to increasing the amount that the state can finance by $500 million to total $1.285 billion.

State prison officials have said the prison facilities will allow the Alabama Department of Corrections (DOC) to close facilities that have deteriorated and can no longer be used, which Albritton reiterated to committee members Wednesday.

In an interview with reporters after the meeting, Albritton declined to state the cost of the planned prison construction facility in Escambia, only saying that the state had accumulated enough funding to pay for 60% of the cost to construct the prison.

“We discovered that much of our funding that we were putting in was going unspent,” he said.

Albritton said, for example, unspent money because the ADOC has not been able to hire corrections officers.

“And we put conditional funding in for the last number of years to cover those. We haven’t been able to hire anybody,” he said.

Instead of using the allocated money for operating funds, Albritton said the state will shift those funds toward the cost of the new prison construction slated in Escambia.

ADOC still has vacant corrections officer positions that it needs to fill because of a court ruling after people who are incarcerated filed a lawsuit alleging they are not receiving adequate medical and mental health treatment.

“That is right, but we still have conditional funding to meet that when that occurs,” Albritton said regarding hiring more corrections officers in the future.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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